


colour all the squares

by afterism



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Blow Jobs, Episode: s03e05 A Life in the Day, Frottage, M/M, Outdoor Sex, Porn with Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-19 14:30:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17003436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afterism/pseuds/afterism
Summary: Eliot accepted spending a potential decade in Fillory a lot quicker than Quentin did - which makes sense, maybe, if he thinks about it.





	colour all the squares

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dancinbutterfly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dancinbutterfly/gifts).



It's late, they're drunk, and the night is edging towards maudlin. Eliot is trying to invent Fillorian champagne a hundred years before he fails at inventing Fillorian champagne. It seems...

"Self-defeating?" Quentin says, squinting at the ceiling. The cushion he balanced on top of the bench slipped off a while ago, and now the hard edge of the wood is digging into the curve of his neck. He doesn't move.

"Hey, maybe it works and then the recipe is just lost to time," Eliot says, stretching out his legs so his heels stay hooked on the bed. The cottage is made of compromises: the bench shoved close to the bed so there's space for the makeshift pallet behind it, everything up against the wall so nothing is blocking the fireplace, anything that can survive the rain moved outside so at least they can walk around without banging their shins constantly.

The bench is small enough that their knees are touching, their shoulders a few inches apart.

"Maybe it gets stored in the Armory," Quentin says, and then lolls his head to the side to find Eliot looking at him, a faint frown between his eyebrows. Quentin's drunk to want to reach out and smooth them with his fingertips; not drunk enough to actually do it. "And then stolen along with all the other deadly weapons," he clarifies.

"Ha," Eliot says, a lazy smile smoothing across his face. Quentin watches as Eliot turns his head away, watches his gaze slide across the petrified beams and rotting straw above them, watches his mouth slip open. "God, I miss my castle."

Quentin laughs. "I miss... decent wine," he says.

"Food that doesn't taste like dirt," Eliot counters. They've started trying to grow things in the beds around the mosaic, vegetables and leafy things and small trees in the corners. The soil lends itself to life, even for two magicians who never looked twice at botany. Still —

"Chips," Quentin sighs.

"Cocktails."

"Hot running water."

"We're magicians," Eliot says, like Quentin might have forgotten. "We could definitely MacGyver something up."

"But—" Quentin starts, shifting up in his seat. There's a reason, it's on the tip of his tongue, "The prime directive—"

"Yeah, no, Q," Eliot says, his jaw working through a grimace. "It's been fun playing house in the Land before Indoor Plumbing, but if we're stuck here for another year then we're introducing Fillory to the wonders of showers."

Quentin's silent for a moment. "Another year?"

Eliot lets his head fall back against the wood, looking up at the thatch. "How many more combinations can there be?" he asks, and then, as Quentin draws in a breath — "Don't answer that," he says, holding up one finger.

Quentin slips a little further down the bench, and finds himself staring at the ceiling again. "One more year," he says, quietly.

"Someone solves it eventually," Eliot says, like he's reminding himself. "It may as well be us."

Quentin takes another sip from his mug without thinking, and gasps through the taste. "Uh, yeah, that doesn't get any better with age," he says, voice strangled.

Eliot huffs a laugh, cheeks dimpled as he rolls his head towards him, and Quentin thinks of Arielle.

"I miss..." he starts, holding Eliot's gaze as his thoughts slip towards Brakebills. _Alice_ is on the tip of his tongue, but he's missed her for a lot longer than a year — and it would be a lie. He thinks about Julia just as much. He's thinking of Arielle and her helper, the way two people can bend together as easy as breathing.

"Yeah, me too," Eliot says, soft. Quentin just blinks, feeling the world tilt, feeling every angle of his body go hot and stretched like light through a prism; nothing's happened, nothing's changed, but he looks at Eliot's mouth and knows why he's barely thought about anyone else.

He didn't notice that happen. How did he not notice that happen?

"What?" Eliot asks, lips caught up in a faint smile.

He's staring. He's too drunk to lie. "I need more wine," Quentin says, holding up his mug.

"At last," Eliot says, languishing one long arm to catch the handle in his long, long fingers. "A quest worthy of my talents."

 

\-----

 

"That'll do, pig," Eliot says, handling down a mug of something promisingly dark. "I don't think those two are the same colour."

"I... don't care," Quentin says, lightly, because he really doesn't. They learnt early on about the tricks torchlight can do to colour, but their system of carefully ordered piles always breaks down when it gets late and they get hungry. Usually Eliot cooks while Quentin finishes off the puzzle — tonight, the mosaic is half-done and rushed together so the blanket is smooth across it, no hard edges to catch unwary palms.

Their shoes are off, the torches flickering with that sweet pine scent, and the late Fillory night is warm enough that it takes a few seconds for Quentin to notice the heat of Eliot's thigh pressing against his knee as Eliot settles back down beside him.

"Happy anniversary, Q. To our first, and last year at this thing," he says, raising his cup.

Quentin smiles, and drinks, keeps his eyes open and feels the woollen catch of the blanket bunching up under his fingers because there's always this moment between deciding to do something, and actually doing it — adrenaline turning to fidgeting, to catching Eliot's attention, to surging forward in an absence of thought and just kissing him, finally, firmly, _finally_.

Relief is his main thought, as Quentin shifts his weight back down, and Eliot — god, Eliot just rushes straight back in, like he's been waiting for his cue.

It's a soft kiss, at first. There's the weirdest sense of deja vu — stubble sharp against his chin, a hand warm and solid around his neck, the taste of wine and spice — but mostly there's Eliot's mouth, anchoring him in place as something under his ribs soars. Quentin's attention narrows hopelessly to every place where Eliot is touching him; the thumb against his jaw, the palm over his left hand, his knee, his lips — a firework of nerve-endings as Eliot's mouth slides over his.

Eliot kisses the same way he does everything else: with practised ease, and unexpected intensity. It floods through him like good wine.

It takes a moment — a long, slow, honeyed moment — for Quentin to realise he has two hands, and at least one of them could be touching Eliot right now. He aims blindly for Eliot's side and finds the silk slide of his shirt, warm skin beneath.

"Hey," he murmurs, when Eliot pulls away, the ghost of a bruise on his lips. A beat later he opens his eyes and catches the way Eliot is looking at him — dark eyed, wondrous.

In this moment Quentin could stare at him for hours, just like this, Eliot's hands warm on his skin as he watches every flicker of expression across Eliot's face — that faint frown of disbelief, that twitch of a smile, the way his focus roams across the plains of his face like he's looking for the edge of a mirage, the mechanism behind the trick.

"El," Quentin says, and the force of Eliot's gaze meeting his hits harder than a tequila shot.

"Yeah," Eliot breathes, his grin brighter than torchlight, than the stars. He surges back in and chases, laughter against his lips, as Quentin leans back on one elbow and tries to lower himself down without breaking the kiss.

It almost works. His hand slides up Eliot's side and Eliot follows, but somehow there are too many knees. Eliot ends up half-braced above him and too far away — he plants a kiss on Quentin's neck, as high as he can reach, and Quentin makes a noise as Eliot pulls back in order to sit up on his heels again.

"Patience," Eliot says, a fascinating thread of promise in his voice, and shifts until he's kneeling between Quentin's sprawl of legs. Quentin can straighten out one leg but the other is in the air, knee bent. Eliot just places his hand on the inside of his thigh and pushes, spreading him open — and wow, okay, apparently he's into that. This year continues to be a revelation.

Eliot doesn't give him the time to dwell on it. His hand slides up Quentin's thigh, warm pressure even through his jeans, and he slinks forward to brace himself on one arm, a breath away without actually _touching_ him anywhere important. His supporting arm is pressed against Quentin's shoulder, his other hand paused light and maddening in the dip of Quentin's thigh. His hair spills forward in dark curls, torchlight slanting shadows across his cheeks but there's something bright and hot in his expression that catches Quentin low in his stomach.

People don't usually look at him like that, like he's enough, like there isn't something he's done that's going to slightly ruin this.

"Jesus, Eliot," Quentin says, everything rushing out in a sigh that is closer to begging than he would care to admit, and then he surges up with both hands finding Eliot's jaw and pulls him down, a kiss clashing somewhere in the middle.

Eliot finally moves his fucking hand, covering Quentin's mouth with his own and swallowing Quentin's gasps as his palm rubs across the front of his jeans. Something — magic, well-practised fingers, _whatever_ — happens and there's cold fingers wrapping around his cock and his world narrows to chasing that friction, thrusting up into Eliot's grip.

"Easy, Q," Eliot murmurs against his mouth, and Quentin just whines, shameless and desperate because it's been a year, okay? He's allowed to be a bit eager.

There's a pleased kind of huff across his chin, a beat where they're not kissing and Eliot's attention is elsewhere, and then Eliot's cock is pulsing warm against his skin and Eliot gets his hand around both of them.

Everything turns molten. Heat drags along his cock, overwhelming and perfect and Quentin digs his fingers into Eliot's jaw, tries not the fuck up the rhythm and kisses him with every minute of desperation he's felt since they stumbled into historical Fillory.

 _We could have been doing this for a year already_ , Quentin thinks, blindsided and delirious, but Eliot rubs the pad of his thumb across Quentin's slit and every thought just melts away, like tacks under molten lead.

Quentin comes first, Eliot pulsing him through it until his mind is blank and loose in that way he so rarely gets, and he melts into the tiles.

After that, there's nothing else in the world but the way Eliot has his head buried in the crook of his neck, panting hot across the dip of his collarbone as he keeps working his hand around of both of them, Quentin's spent cock rubbing between Eliot's and his palm until Eliot comes, gasping and strangled.

Eliot takes a moment, his body heavy and heaving on top of him, before he rolls off with a shaky kind of laugh and Quentin lets himself drift a sleepy haze. He's aware of every inch of his body but it's like it belongs to someone else: satisfaction in every muscle, no tightness in his chest, no creeping embarrassment sending tendrils up his throat.

It doesn't last. The problem is, he was so fixated on just kissing Eliot that there wasn't room to think about what would happen next, and now a million _what if_ s are clamouring loud and insistent for his attention.

"So, uh," Quentin starts, his voice very loud in the midnight stillness. The stars twinkle above him, framed picture-perfect by the ragged circle of branches.

"Shh," Eliot says, blindly patting Quentin's thigh. "Sleep now. Anxieties later."

 _But_ , Quentin wants to says, but apparently all the relaxed and happy parts of his body have decided to obey Eliot now, and then he's asleep.

 

\-----

 

Consciousness comes in warmth on his face, birdsong nearby, golden light bright across his eyelids, and for a bleary moment Quentin thinks someone must have cast that Disney Princess spell on him again.

A few moments later and he realises that _so many_ bits of him hurt. His neck aches, his shoulders are a line of tension, whatever he's laying on is kind of cold and very hard, he has a thematically inappropriate Taylor Swift song stuck in his head — and everything is, relatively, normal. There's the weight of a woollen blanket over him, that ease in his chest, the smell of damp earth and pine sap.

Even the faint sounds of Eliot breathing close by are familiar now. Quentin opens his eyes, grimaces against the glare of an unforgiving sunrise and turns — oh, there is a pillow under his head, that's nice — to find Eliot closer than usual and fast asleep. He's twisted onto his front, a sprawl of limbs that ends with both feet sticking out the other side of the blanket, and his head turned towards Quentin and almost entirely off the pillow.

Quentin is, perhaps, not entirely used to this yet — seeing Eliot unmeasured and relaxed, no performance in any angle. When he's awake Eliot moves like he's learnt insouciance from watching other people and perfected it into muscle memory. Like this, he looks astonishingly delicate, fragile even under the stubble and the smudge of his eyelashes.

He's still staring when Eliot wakes up. It's the slow hitch in his breathing, the fleeting shadow between his eyebrows, a shift in his jaw that catches light across his cheekbones. He opens his eyes a crack, and blinks once, slowly, when he finds himself looking at Quentin.

"Morning," Eliot says, his smile spreading across his face like dawn, subtle and brilliant.

"Morning," Quentin says, something warm and tentative unfurling in his chest. Eliot's expression barely changes from sleepy contentment as he pushes himself up onto one elbow, looking down at Quentin, and then he kisses him.

And this is — easy. Startlingly easy. His hand finds Eliot's jaw and Eliot gets his fingers around the curve of Quentin's skull, holding him still as the kiss sinks slow and deep and leisurely as a Sunday morning. Eliot's in no hurry. Quentin's got nowhere to be.

It's all pressure and wet exploration, the first embers being stoked of an almost-cool fire, until —

"Fuck your man bun," Eliot murmurs, a growl against his lips. His hand is around the back of Quentin's head, his fingers trying to work between the caught strands of Quentin's hair.

Quentin laughs, light bubbling up in his lungs like champagne. "I thought you liked it."

"I do, I do, it's an essential part of the Quentin Coldwater experience and I love it," he says, nonsense peppered with brushes across his mouth. "But right now I need it gone."

Quentin reaches up to untangle the elastic, wincing through the one tug it takes to get it loose, and then Eliot's fingers are there instead. Quentin gets a hand under Eliot's shirt, finding long stretches of hot skin that make Eliot sigh into his mouth, and somehow all the dark thoughts that cling in the corners of his mind just vanish, like someone turned on a light.

When Eliot rolls onto his back Quentin follows, lazing across him chest to chest, one thigh slipping between Eliot's. The blanket tries to tangle around Quentin's feet and there's a moment when he's off-balance and uncoordinated, trying to kick it away without breaking the kiss.

He realises it's not working when Eliot laughs, a burst of warm air across Quentin's unoccupied mouth.

"Uh, hang on," he says, levering back up on one arm to grab a handful of blanket and throw it clear across the mosaic, not caring when it hits the vegetable patch in a puff of dirt and flops over.

"Hey, watch the botanicals," Eliot says, his throat a long line of pale skin as he cranes his head to look.

"No," Quentin says, myopic in the face of Eliot stretched beneath him, and applies his mouth until Eliot's breath hitches in delight.

He can feel Eliot pressed hard against his thigh, the stuttering jerks of his hips as Eliot seems to chase that friction without demanding anything, and Quentin wants — God, he wants everything, feeling molten and fevered like candy left out in the sun, the taste of Eliot on his tongue and the solid weight beneath him, the heave of his chest and the gasps catching at the back of his throat. He feels dizzy with it, wide awake and drunk on the way Eliot meets every kiss with a deeper slide of his tongue, working each other open.

"I want," Quentin says, exploring the line of his throat, stubble over his lips, and —

" _Yes_ , God, anything you want," Eliot gasps, and so Quentin slips lower, fumbling Eliot's trousers open and letting his cock spring free, blushed red and burning hot when Quentin wraps his hand around it. Eliot's legs sprawl wide open, looking ravished and expectant as Quentin kneels between them and licks his lips. Eliot's cock pulses under his fingers.

He can do this. He knows what guys like, even if most of his experience is one-sided.

"I didn't take you for such a fucking tease, Coldwater," Eliot says, wiggling up onto his elbows so he can watch. His eyes are dark and lidded, his bruise-red lips parted and angled into an almost-smile, and Quentin holds that image in his mind as he ducks down and gets his mouth around the head of Eliot's cock.

Eliot is, oddly, silent, but Quentin just sinks down in a slow, obscene slide. He's determined to taste him, to cover every velvet inch of his flushed skin, to make Eliot shudder and fall apart under his hands. One palm is flattened over Eliot's stomach; resting, rather than holding, but he can feel every jerk of Eliot's breath, every clench and stutter of his hips.

Feeling daring, he looks up and sees Eliot lost in bliss; the sweep of his eyelashes, an artless smile teetering on the edge of a gasp, and Quentin rocks against the pulled-tight front of his own jeans because _fuck_. He circles his tongue around the head, teasing, watching every delighted shiver of Eliot's jaw before closing his eyes and swallowing him back down.

There is the brief, distant thought that they are _outside_ in _broad fucking daylight_ , but no one comes by this early and even if they did — oh, there's a weird thread of heat behind that thought. Quentin hollows his cheeks and feels every helpless jerk of Eliot's hips all the way down his spine, pooling gold low in his stomach.

"Q... fuck, _Q_ ," Eliot groans, one hand finding its way to tangle in Quentin's hair and then he's coming, thick strokes into Quentin's mouth as he gasps through it.

Quentin, possessed by a sudden rogue panic about getting spunk on the mosaic and what that might detract from the beauty of all life, swallows.

Eliot has collapsed when Quentin finally looks up, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth. He's smug and warm and also so fucking hard right now, and he could get himself off without even undoing his fly but his lizard brain wants Eliot's attention and, well.

He crawls forward, stretching out beside Eliot and propping himself up on one elbow.

"You liked that?" Quentin says, leaning towards ridiculous because he knows what he sounds like when he tries to flirt.

Eliot opens his eyes as he pulls a face, mock-considering. "I have some notes," he says, a little breathless, and Quentin snorts. It turns into a breathy kind of gasp as Eliot rolls towards him and rubs the heel of his hand across the bulge in his jeans, and then just noises as Eliot gets them open, and God, honestly, he's so turned on that it only takes a few strokes of Eliot's talented fingers for him to come.

"I'm flattered," Eliot says, grinning.

"I'm just... out of practice," Quentin mumbles, flopping onto his back and throwing an arm across his eyes. The sun is high enough to hurt, dazzling red across his eyelids before he covers them.

Eliot laughs. "Hey, I wasn't complaining."

After that, Eliot cleans them both up with a few useful spells, tucks him away, and goes to make breakfast. Quentin lies back, exhausted and undefended against all the little _what if_ s that come flooding back. They should talk about this, right?

 

\-----

 

("So, um," he tries, when they're both sitting on the mosaic again, the blankets tidied up into the cottage, the chalks and tiles spread out around them.

"Let's just... save our overthinking for the puzzle, yeah?" Eliot says, and Quentin pauses, and nods.

He can totally do that. He certainly needs the practice.

And then, later:

"I'm not overthinking it," Quentin promises, mouthing along the line of Eliot's jaw as his hand slips lower.

"Great," Eliot gasps. "Could you maybe not overthink it a little harder and, God yes, _right there_ —")

 

\-----

 

" _Technically_ it's not Chatwin's Torrent yet, people only start calling it that after Rupert. And actually, it's really interesting, um, the river continues but this is the only spot where healing magic is said to happen, right? So, you know, there's this whole debate about whether it's the water or the rocks or something about this —"

"Uh huh, Q," Eliot says, holding up one hand. "Is this the magic spa?"

His mouth is tight when Quentin looks at him, his jaw hard, his eyes fixed on the opposite bank like he can't look at the water until he knows it's real.

There are some things they still don't talk about.

"Well, yeah," Quentin says, and watches Eliot's throat work as he swallows. The river is more beautiful than he imagined: all dappled sunlight and sparkling water, a tumble of rocks surrounded by young pine trees, and he can _feel_ the magic in the air, that edge of something so clean and pure that it almost burns.

"Great," Eliot says, his smile a quick flash of bravado, gone before Quentin can blink. "Get your pants off and let's dive in."

"Um," Quentin says, tucking his hands into his armpits.

"Yes, I do say that to all the boys," Eliot says darkly, dipping his head in acknowledgement. "Come along,"

"It might be a one person at a time deal," Quentin tries. This is — it's not like he's body-shy, and it's not like he objects to being naked and wet with Eliot, but this —

This feels sacred, and personal, and the part of him that knew to hand over the god-killing baton to Alice and to be Julia's sidekick on the way to figuring out her powers knows that Eliot should probably do this bit alone.

Eliot sighs. "There's not a queue, Q," he says, flat, and Quentin looks at him again.

 _Oh_ , he thinks. There are things they don't talk about. There are edges of Eliot he still doesn't know. He's never seen the way fear can sit in Eliot's jaw, the way it makes knots down his throat. Eliot looks raw, and unmasked, and terrified.

Quentin swallows. "Last one in is a rotten egg?" he tries, and the look Eliot turns on him is such pure relief, bright as a knife edge, that Quentin feels winded.

"Yeah," Eliot says, too soft, and then, "Yeah," with a grin. He looks Quentin over with that familiar intensity, the one that makes him feel like clothes are pointless and Eliot can see through everything anyway. "Get your kit off, Coldwater," he says, and starts shrugging out of his ragged-edged shirt.

Quentin moves a little slower, pulling his shirt off over his head and letting it drop onto the nearest dry boulder, because he used to fantasise about diving into Chatwin's Torrent and coming out as a completely different person, someone comfortable in their own skin, but he's learnt real magic doesn't work like that.

 _But_ , he thinks. Eliot needs this, and it turns out there are a lot of things he'll do if it's what Eliot wants. And, well. Maybe it can't fix the things he was born with, the fault lines in his personality that are as fundamental as his lungs and sinew and tendons — but it can't hurt to try, right?

Eliot is a step ahead, gloriously naked and a line of tension from his shoulders to his ankles, clenched and hesitant on the edge of the water.

"Okay," Quentin says, mostly to himself, and takes a running jump from behind him to land, loud and kind of painfully, a few feet into the pool.

At least it's deeper than it looked from the side. His feet hit the bottom, pebbles sliding under his toes, and then he's back up and spitting water out of his mouth and trying to shake slick hair out his eyes all at once.

"Oh my God," he says, paddling his arms. "It's _warm_ ," he shouts, delighted, and twists in the water to see Eliot still on the bank, grinning fondly.

"Thank you, for that display," Eliot says, and wades in with a touch more grace. His expression slips; the water gets up to his waist and his mouth softens, eyebrows hitching up. A strange heat sparks to life in Quentin's stomach.

"So, um," Eliot says, not quite looking at Quentin. "All the way in, right?"

Quentin tilts his head, lets the beat for the obvious joke to pass, and then smiles because seriously, this water feels _amazing_. "Yeah," he says, feeling a touch drunk.

"Here goes nothing," Eliot says, all in a rush, and folds under the water.

He can still see him under the surface, Eliot's arms pale swirls that stir the water into art, and Quentin has the odd thought that the mosaic needs more blue. The beauty of all life, he thinks, but then Eliot bursts up gasping and the thought is gone.

Eliot flounders a bit, and swallows, and then looks at the sky and lets out a howl of laughter that thrums through Quentin's skin. "I feel," Eliot gasps, wide-eyed and dripping, and then he turns his gaze on Quentin and wades over to him, a naiad of temptation.

"I feel," he says, again, and cups Quentin's jaw in both hands to draw him up into a kiss.

It's all a bit of wet blur, for a while, until Eliot slips his hand down Quentin's stomach and wraps his fingers around Quentin's cock.

"Oh look," he says, and Quentin's still got his eyes closed but he can _feel_ Eliot's grin. "I found a sword in a lake."

"El," Quentin sighs, fond and annoyed, but Eliot ignores him.

"As the Once and Future King — literally — by all rights this belongs to me."

Quentin laughs, helpless, but he thinks of kings and he thinks of Fillory, and suddenly the knowledge of where they are slams to the front of his mind, relevant and terrible.

"Wait, uh, hang on," Quentin says, trying to back away. The water resists. "We're not defiling Chatwin's Torrent."

"Please. It would not be the worst thing we've done to Fillory," Eliot says, and draws him in close, his hand sliding easily around his waist.

"Yeah, but —" Quentin flounders, but Eliot is kissing him again, and, well. These days there are a lot of parts of him that are used to obeying Eliot, and Eliot's got his hand around one of them right now.

Quentin gives in.


End file.
